96 PCWorld JANUARY 2020REVIEWS GOOGLE STADIA
browser. It’s slick,
basically
indistinguishable
from running a
game natively in
borderless
windowed
mode.
Trouble is, 4K
streaming is
locked to the
Chromecast at
launch, as I said.
The PC is limited
to 1080p, and it’s an ugly 1080p. The
compression artifacts, already noticeable on a
Chromecast at the maximum streaming
quality, are omnipresent on PC. It’s a definite
issue in dark environments, and can even be
spotted on Destiny 2’s “Destination” menu.
Still, there’s a novelty to running these
games on devices that shouldn’t be able to
run them. Got a cheap laptop at home?
Hook it up to an ethernet cable, pop open
Chrome, plug in a mouse or the Stadia
controller (or an Xbox controller for that
matter) and you could be running a pretty
good facsimile of Destiny 2 (go.pcworld.
com/dsn2) or Red Dead Redemption II (go.
pcworld.com/rdll) or Assassin’s Creed
Odyssey (go.pcworld.com/asac). That’s the
real promise of Stadia, and when 4K support
is added to the Chrome version in 2020 it
could prove pretty interesting.Phones are a disaster though. Even if
you’ve purchased the Founder’s Edition, at
launch Stadia only supports Pixel 2, 3/3a,
and 4 devices. That’s it, so...I hope you own
one. Given how many phones run Android, I
cannot believe Google didn’t even prep the
2019 flagships for release day.
The phone is also the weakest Stadia
environment, which is a shame because it has
the most promise. Who doesn’t want to play
Red Dead Redemption II on a phone, right?
Or take Destiny 2 with them on vacation by
packing just a controller in their bag?
Performance is inconsistent though, even on
Wi-Fi. Half a second latency was the norm,
and while I didn’t have any serious
connection issues with a laptop, the phone
dropped frames, stuttered, even displayed a
“Lost Connection” symbol at times.
To make matters worse, many games areOr while waiting to queue into the Haunted Forest.